Women Actually Earn Around 40 Percent Less Than Men

Economist02c3

What the OP posted is logical, and is clear about its assumptions, which I applaud. My conclusions from it are pretty different: the differences in male and female earnings are large, but the vast majority is made up for by what the females can control, and not what they can't control.

So if your goal was to reduce that number per se (which seems like a weird goal), you would need to focus on getting women to choose different things. That's quite different than trying to pass laws requiring businesses to prove they are paying men and women the same, since, after all, there's no evidence that that's a problem.

Most people seem to have totally misunderstood the OP. It isnt a serious proposal, its a reductio ad absurdum of looking at what the mainstream media calls the 'uncontrolled gap' (i.e. controlling for full-time hours worked and nothing else). The argument in the OP is both correct and clever.

LOL. Yeah, why would it be sensible to restrict an analysis of pay to wage earners? People who voluntarily don’t earn a wage must be included in any analysis on the association between labor and wages. /sarcasm

There is no sensible analysis such that pay conditional on working is what you're really after.

If you buy that "sophisticated argument" in the first place - yes you are right. However, even if you do that, the policy answer to such a gendered sorting must be totally different than what is usually sugested.
If unequal pay is due to gendered sorting, then labor markets are efficient, but individual preferences are biased towards a level that is not preferred socially. This is a very paternalistic and illiberal argument from my point of view.

It can be illiberal, but it's only illiberal if you don't recognise the liberalism behind the desire to have equal pay between the sexes.

People currently hold a set of preferences that leads to illiberal outcomes (patriarchy, etc), by changing preferences you would (hopefully) be able to bring about more liberal circumstances where everybody is free to pursue what they wish without outside pressure to adhere to a certain role (the argument being the outside pressure that currently exists needs to be erased before true liberty is reached).

To pick an admittedly inflammatory example, it's similar to support for colonialism among 19th century liberals. The "civilising mission" liberals, the ones who wanted to go to other parts of the world to spread modernity and liberalism and raise up the populations, against their will if necessary. It's undoubtedly paternalistic, but it's a paternalistic liberalism.

Yes, you are right. It's probably a question of belief if you think that liberal goals may be achieved by illiberal means or not.

I think, however, that it's also a question of feasibility. The pressure needed to push individual preferences towards the politically favoured level would be extraordinarily high. I strongly doubt that liberal democracy would be able to exert this kind of pressure without turning into autocracy and dystopia. Which then would violate the premise of liberal goals.

If you buy that "sophisticated argument" in the first place - yes you are right. However, even if you do that, the policy answer to such a gendered sorting must be totally different than what is usually sugested.
If unequal pay is due to gendered sorting, then labor markets are efficient, but individual preferences are biased towards a level that is not preferred socially. This is a very paternalistic and illiberal argument from my point of view.

It can be illiberal, but it's only illiberal if you don't recognise the liberalism behind the desire to have equal pay between the sexes.
People currently hold a set of preferences that leads to illiberal outcomes (patriarchy, etc), by changing preferences you would (hopefully) be able to bring about more liberal circumstances where everybody is free to pursue what they wish without outside pressure to adhere to a certain role (the argument being the outside pressure that currently exists needs to be erased before true liberty is reached).
To pick an admittedly inflammatory example, it's similar to support for colonialism among 19th century liberals. The "civilising mission" liberals, the ones who wanted to go to other parts of the world to spread modernity and liberalism and raise up the populations, against their will if necessary. It's undoubtedly paternalistic, but it's a paternalistic liberalism.

Yes, you are right. It's probably a question of belief if you think that liberal goals may be achieved by illiberal means or not.
I think, however, that it's also a question of feasibility. The pressure needed to push individual preferences towards the politically favoured level would be extraordinarily high. I strongly doubt that liberal democracy would be able to exert this kind of pressure without turning into autocracy and dystopia. Which then would violate the premise of liberal goals.

If you buy that "sophisticated argument" in the first place - yes you are right. However, even if you do that, the policy answer to such a gendered sorting must be totally different than what is usually sugested.
If unequal pay is due to gendered sorting, then labor markets are efficient, but individual preferences are biased towards a level that is not preferred socially. This is a very paternalistic and illiberal argument from my point of view.

It can be illiberal, but it's only illiberal if you don't recognise the liberalism behind the desire to have equal pay between the sexes.
People currently hold a set of preferences that leads to illiberal outcomes (patriarchy, etc), by changing preferences you would (hopefully) be able to bring about more liberal circumstances where everybody is free to pursue what they wish without outside pressure to adhere to a certain role (the argument being the outside pressure that currently exists needs to be erased before true liberty is reached).
To pick an admittedly inflammatory example, it's similar to support for colonialism among 19th century liberals. The "civilising mission" liberals, the ones who wanted to go to other parts of the world to spread modernity and liberalism and raise up the populations, against their will if necessary. It's undoubtedly paternalistic, but it's a paternalistic liberalism.

These people already believe the current state of things is too illiberal, though. If you concede that the state has any sort of legitimate role in shaping culture/norms/behaviour/etc (and almost everyone does, it's pretty crazy not to believe this), it's not that far a leap to something like this.

There's a major failing in society (women have different preferences than men) that I attribute to some outside cause (societal pressure, etc). This reduces liberty to a large degree and needs to be corrected. The easiest way to do this is through state power. The methods can be illiberal, but the intention is fully liberal (and plenty of "liberal reforms" through history were accomplished through very heavy handed and illiberal means).

If you buy that "sophisticated argument" in the first place - yes you are right. However, even if you do that, the policy answer to such a gendered sorting must be totally different than what is usually sugested.
If unequal pay is due to gendered sorting, then labor markets are efficient, but individual preferences are biased towards a level that is not preferred socially. This is a very paternalistic and illiberal argument from my point of view.

It can be illiberal, but it's only illiberal if you don't recognise the liberalism behind the desire to have equal pay between the sexes.
People currently hold a set of preferences that leads to illiberal outcomes (patriarchy, etc), by changing preferences you would (hopefully) be able to bring about more liberal circumstances where everybody is free to pursue what they wish without outside pressure to adhere to a certain role (the argument being the outside pressure that currently exists needs to be erased before true liberty is reached).
To pick an admittedly inflammatory example, it's similar to support for colonialism among 19th century liberals. The "civilising mission" liberals, the ones who wanted to go to other parts of the world to spread modernity and liberalism and raise up the populations, against their will if necessary. It's undoubtedly paternalistic, but it's a paternalistic liberalism.

Listen, op, because we know you're op: nobody cares. The whole negative reaction against the gender gap nonsense isnt because its falsehood has any social relevance, but because the debate is a massive drain on the time and energy of people who have better things to do. The fact that you have invented a clever reductio ad absurdum argument about that BS topic isn't solving the problem. It's like finding a way to gain an edge in a special Olympics race. Its sad. Nobody cares. Sane intelligent economists have better things to do than to care about this mockery of social science.

Most people seem to have totally misunderstood the OP. It isnt a serious proposal, its a reductio ad absurdum of looking at what the mainstream media calls the 'uncontrolled gap' (i.e. controlling for full-time hours worked and nothing else). The argument in the OP is both correct and clever.

My wife stays at home with the kids and volunteers. She hasn't earned a dime in years, and I make around 300k a year. We have a giant house, two luxury cars, belong to a country club, and save a ton of money every year.

OP thinks my wife should take a job at McDonalds to reduce the gender pay gap. My wife begs to differ.